Pieces I like

DAY

by Bicknell Young

When you awake in the morning, realise and repeat understandingly and, at once, ‘There is only one Mind’ and then, before the mesmerism of the day is taken in, establish the truth about Day; (S&H 584) ‘The irradiance of Life, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love.  Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded.  This unfolding is God’s day there shall be no night there.’

Establish your day in consciousness as unfoldment, know that the belief of time has no dominion over you or others – you have dominion over it.  When you awake, know that you have time and opportunity to do all the things that you need to do this day.  You have not a single thing to do this day but be clear in consciousness so that Mind may unfold.  If you stick to this, you will have plenty of time and opportunity to do all the things you have to do.  What have you to do today? You have but one thing to do today, and that is to know the truth.

When confronted with many hours work, just know the truth first thing.  Do not start out with the belief that you have to do certain things – if you do that you are mesmerised already.  You must know the truth before you get started.  Knowing the morning that Day is the unfoldment of Mind’s plan and purpose.  It is God’s day and is not governed by time.  It is unfoldment and revelation that does not begin or end.

All the incidents in God’s day are already arranged and follow each other in order scientifically.  Infinite unfoldment never begins and never ends, and is never interrupted for a moment.  Infinite Mind knows no limitations.  It cannot be restricted in achievement and its laws are irrevocable and cannot be interfered with.  This day is Spirit, not matter.  Do not let material sense say “I am” in any incident or creation.  This day is the very action of Omniscience.  This day has no presence but Omnipresence.  The only power manifested this day is Omnipotence.  This day does not take you or me or anybody nearer to a tomb in belief or at all. This day take you and me and all creation nearer to immortality.  This day is immortality revealed and demonstrated.  It has no night.  It is eternal Light, the irradiance of Spirit, God.

No problem can enter God’s day.  Mind is not engaged with problems.  Mind unfolds its day without interruption. It has versatility and all originality, all variety.  It is infinite and all its manifestations are complete, whole and satisfied, for man is a state of complete and supreme satisfaction.

Health means wholeness, one does not need to appear as anything else but whole.  The original meaning of health is just that – just to be complete, nothing wanting, nothing lacking, and health we must have.  It is divinely natural.  Everyone may have it by claiming it.  It can be had in Christian Science because Christian Science reveals the Law and Science of Life in Christ.  It needs to be and can be demonstrated.  You can demonstrate it.  Do this and help others to do it.  This daily work will do much, that you cannot appreciate at once.  Right understanding of day lifts the burden of mortal belief and serves to dissipate the current mesmerism of mortal mind, as well as protecting you from its claims.

 

Unvarying health

By Carol Rounds
One day as I was brushing my teeth, I complimented myself for taking such good care of my teeth—an assessment that had been confirmed by good reports from the hygienist who cleaned them. Suddenly I realized I had accepted a concept of myself as a material being, kept healthy through proper hygiene.
I’ve learned in Christian Science that we should always be recognizing God, Spirit, rather than matter as the one and only preserver of our health, since we are God’s spiritual ideas. According to the Psalmist, our health comes from God: “I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Psalms 42:11). In reality, dental care never had and never could have any effect on health, since the health of a spiritual idea is maintained by Spirit.
Keeping the body clean is normal, and cleanliness certainly shouldn’t be neglected! But just as I don’t believe that washing a car has any effect on how well it runs, I knew I could not be tempted to think that cleansing the body was the source of its health. Health is and always has been the only condition of true being, which has its source in God. This realization felt like an important step of progress for me in looking away from the body or matter to judge health or reality, and in accepting Spirit as the source and circumference of my being.
For some time I have contemplated this statement from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the physical condition” (p. 297). It seems to me, then, that when we base our sense of health on the material senses, we’ve based it on mere belief, making it illusory and variable. But true health is unvarying and always good, and when we advance from material beliefs about health to a spiritual understanding of the health that comes from God, we have planted ourselves securely on Truth.
Mrs. Eddy once gave this advice to one of her students: “A belief of health is grown out of in one of two ways—viz. suffering or Science. Do not sentence yourself to suffer out of a belief, but rise to the understanding that takes you out. This understanding is spiritual….
Health is not variable and is never dependent on matter.
“Now rouse yourself to know you are not living in the body but in God, in Spirit, in the good you do and are” (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, Amplified Edition, p. 242). When we are dealing with ill health, it can be tempting to focus our efforts primarily on changing the physical condition, and to accept the conclusion that hygiene, diet, exercise, and medicine are the means of maintaining good health. But if lasting health is actually the result of spiritual understanding, we should be more inclined to turn to prayer, acknowledging the perfect Principle, God, and His perfect man, and recognizing God, Spirit, as the source and maintainer of all real existence. When we “rise” to this spiritual understanding—accept it and trust it—the result is healing.
When the perfection of God is the starting point of our prayers, healing is not an effort to change sick matter into healthy matter, but is the outcome of utilizing spiritual sense to see that ill health is an illusion, a lie. Then we see that health is not variable and is never dependent on matter in any form. Physical organs, body chemistry, exposure to disease, genetics, accident, or any other material form or condition cannot affect man’s life, since man’s life is the expression of divine Life, which is Spirit.
Christ Jesus instructed his followers: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” (Matthew 6:25). In the Gospels we see that Jesus never recommended attention to the hygiene and health rules of his time. He showed no fear as an “unclean” leper approached him (see Mark 1:40–42). Instead, “moved with compassion,” Jesus healed him. As Science and Health points out, “Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man should live” (p. 369).
Once, I began to experience internal pain. I was tempted to think that I could pray more effectively if I knew what was causing the discomfort—perhaps a diagnosis would help, I reasoned. But I quickly rejected this thought with the realization that, in any case, it was still only a suggestion of material belief. I knew that my health was not dependent on matter in any way, and that I could turn to my perfect model, God, to gain a clearer view of myself as His reflection. As I did so, the pain disappeared and has not returned.
As we seek a higher, permanent sense of true health in Spirit, we naturally lose the matter-based concept of health. Unvarying health is normal and inevitable; and as we lean on divine Truth, nothing can prevent us from increasingly experiencing well-being.